Identifying Features
Kino Lorber | Release Date: January 22, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 22, 2021
Hypnotic and heartbreaking, Identifying Features is a feature debut to marvel at, but only once you’re able to shake off the bone-deep chills emanating from Mexican filmmaker Fernanda Valadez’s disorienting tale of a mother’s search for her missing son. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloJan 22, 2021
Identifying Features has a subtle frantic quality, a kind of restraint in bearing witness to the unspeakable horrors facing countless others who must stay silent. Read full review
100
Original-CinKim HughesJan 20, 2021
Beautifully shot and terribly sad, with a wildly twitchy score ratcheting up the tension, the Mexican drama Identifying Features is a profound statement about maternal love, brutal inequality, and institutional corruption. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubCarlos AguilarJan 20, 2021
Some movies wound us so profoundly that once darkness has consumed their final frame we are incapable of shaking off the heartache. That’s the power of Identifying Features, which is as painfully intimate as it is unsparing in its indictment of a country ravaged by a corrosive, entrenched evil. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJan 19, 2021
It takes a special sort of confidence to make a quiet movie, and that’s exactly what director Fernanda Valadez displays in her debut feature, Identifying Features. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineSteven ScaifeJan 19, 2021
The film is as much about the act of seeing and observing as it is about not seeing, about struggling to recognize that which might not clarify much at all. Read full review
83
IndieWireKate ErblandJan 21, 2021
While the trauma of a missing child makes for the film’s heart, its spine is something much more difficult to effectively put on film: the horrible waiting, the in-between times, the stretched moments when no news — good or bad — is available. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansMay 2, 2021
Valadez’s expressionist images give texture to the abstract emotions of rage and pain. Read full review
80
The New York TimesTeo BugbeeJan 21, 2021
It’s a confident debut feature, and a sophisticated acknowledgment of the powerlessness that migrants face. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterBeandrea JulyJan 20, 2021
The film's stylistic approach places an unmistakable and compelling veil of empathy around Magdalena, Miguel and the migrant workers just trying to survive amid violence, economic desperation and political strife. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlex SavelievNov 12, 2020
Apart from the two leads, there’s little warmth or humanity to be found here, the film purposefully cold and distancing, much easier to admire than to love. That said, there’s plenty to admire in this sad, contemplative journey into the heart of darkness. Read full review
80
Screen DailyWendy IdeNov 12, 2020
Subdued in tone and stoic in its approach to the dangers that can decimate an entire community, Identifying Features is admirable in its restraint, and all the more powerful because of it. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiJan 22, 2021
An unsettling feeling hums through the film, and remains well after. Less of a jolt, then; call it a sustained current. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 26, 2021
The movie ultimately seems to suggest that the evils unleashed upon Mexico come from a place beyond humankind, which seems an easy way out after all Magdalena and Miguel have been put through. That said, this remains a terrifying cinematic vision that can’t be ignored, from a young filmmaker who won’t be. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 21, 2021
Valadez lets her actor’s faces do most of the talking here. It’s a music-free film of long, tense silences and splashes of fraught shakedowns and terror. Read full review
70
VarietyDennis HarveyJan 20, 2021
A film that straddles the line between artful and arty like this one isn’t designed for a wide public. There are moments that are striking, even if the their impact is muddied by a minimalism that at times feel pretentious. “Features” is ultimately worth the sit, but it needn’t have required quite so much effort. Read full review
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